Memberium Expert Opinion: LearnDash vs AccessAlly Which Is Better

I got this question the other day and figured I would answer it in my blog. I know there are other business owners that are looking for a Memberium expert opinion to guide them. That can help in deciding between these two solutions.

The question is, "When building an online course site, which is better: AccessAlly, or Memberium with LearnDash?"  I understand the question, but this Memberium Expert who builds a large number of Memberium and LearnDash, comes back with a better version of the, "When is AccessAlly the better choice? When is Memberium with LearnDash the better choice?"

Let’s take a look at the difference between these two very solid tools.

AccessAlly provides an all-in-one solution. It delivers both a membership site-building tool and learning management system.  Memberium takes a different approach. It provides the membership site building features and integrates tightly with LearnDash for it's learning management system.

AccessAlly's membership site building features allows users to add content based on things purchased on a website.  Think of it as the gate that let's people in or not. It gives people access only to the parts of the website they’re allowed in, or the content they’re allowed to see.

AccessAlly includes its own learning management system.  You can build your online course with it. You use it to define how the course appears on the website.  Lesson can be divided up into different sub-lesson. They enable you to organize the course using a hierarchy which is nice.  AccessAlly has a nice progress indicator feature.  You can see which sections you have completed and you can use a bookmarking feature it provides to easily tell where you left off.

Memberium takes a different approach. They are a membership site building tool. They don't offer anything else. They want to be good at this one thing and then integrate with other solutions to provide features they don't. They give you the gatekeeper role just like AccessAlly does. They are in charge of letting you access the content based on what it is you are allowed to see.

Memberium expert-ly delegates the learning portion to companion LearnDash. They support LifterLMS too, but that's a topic for another article. Memberium provides features for integrating the two so you get their features and gain access to “best-in-breed” learning system.

Both LearnDash and AccessAlly's learning management features provide good solutions. The benefit of using Memberium with LearnDash is that you may exceed AccessAlly's feature set and they you are stuck. With LearnDash, there is a healthy after market of providers extending the LearnDash feature set. For instance, provides give you ability to have multiple administrators or instructors teaching different courses on your site. You can give each instructor access to ONLY the courses they teach and they system keeps them out of each others way. LearnDash provides some good reporting via a solution provided by Uncanny Owl. There are some pretty advanced features that you won't find available with AccessAlly..

If you start with AccessAlly and a feature you need is not provided, you are stuck  You’d need to change platforms to get that.  Memberium can be used with the simpler features on LearnDash, but if you want more features, it’s a very easy upgrade with no changes.

The cost for AccessAlly is $99 a month.  Memberium is only $57 a month, plus the added cost of LearnDash at $159 a year.  The monthly combined cost for the latter two programs is less than it is for Memberium.

As I said upfront, which one is better depends on what it is you want to do. You may need the more advanced features provided by LearnDash. You may prefer the simpler features provided by AccessAlly. If you have plans for growing your course platform, LearnDash gives you a better roadmap for growing. You should go over these pros and cons and decide which tools are right for you.